I might have to start praying for healing. You know how hard it is to admit that modern medicine can't get the job done?

I've finished my ten-day series of Lupin 250 twice a day and nothing much has changed, sore throat and aching ears persist.

I'll just blame Father; he botched the St. Blaise blessing ... by forgetting about it (!) and then, after some (angry) parishioners reminded him (we are a traditional backwater!) with (heated) phone calls and email, he gave a general invocation of the saint's protection a week late and professed that God follows a different calendar from us.

I don't remember scoffing at the blessing ... I'm usually not fussy about accepting blessings ... but maybe I found it all silly.

I think, 'though, that I was genuinely distracted, trying to make up in my mind whether he forgot on purpose. The St. Blaise tradition doesn't strike me as his preferred shtick.